After getting settled in New Zealand, Su and I decided to take a few days off to visit the Hawkes Bay. So, on a beautifully sunny Waitangi Day, we headed south to Lake Taupo, before we then headed east and about 5pm, we were driving down the marine parade in Napier.
Napier has an interesting history; in early February 1931, the town was largely levelled by a massive earthquake, which claimed the lives of over 200 people. When the city was rebuilt, the architectural style in vogue at the time was Art Deco and it was widely used in the reconstruction efforts. Today, Napier is considered to be one of the two best-preserved Art Deco towns in the world. Beginning in 2007, Napier was nominated as a World Heritage Site with UNESCO and became the first cultural site in New Zealand to be so nominated.
Sadly, like much of small-town New Zealand, Napier appears to be suffering a little from the effects of urban drift. Some of it's buildings lie empty and have "For Sale/Lease" signs hanging in the window. Even in high season, the town seemed noticeably devoid of the expected tourist throngs. That said, we may have arrived during a brief hiatus; just a few days before the renowned art deco festival and a live concert featuring Sting.
Most of the town still has a freshly-painted look to it and is, on the whole, well maintained. The marine parade flower gardens were beautiful and floral baskets decorated the eaves and lampposts throughout the town centre. The town centre has several coffee shops, bakeries and lunch bars in close proximity, loosely surrounding an open-air, café-culture arrangement of tables and chairs, under large colourful umbrellas. A great place to start the day!
Hawkes Bay is well-known as a great wine-producing region and no trip there is complete without a visit to a couple of them. We booked a visit to three wineries, with a touring firm called BayTours and visited a large (Sileni), medium (Crossroads) and small (Moana Park) local winery. They all offered something interesting, but my personal favourite was a 10-year old tawny, which is fantastic with cheese and crackers!
Napier and it's sister-city Hastings have a fairly active art & craft scene and we visited the Birdwoods Gallery in Havelock North, where we spent a pleasant hour, browsing the interesting collection of African art, craft and sculpture. Then we headed over to the Silky Oak Chocolate Company and Museum (yum!).
For me however, the highlight of the trip was a dive in the shark tank at the National Aquarium. The 30-minute snorkel was reasonably priced at $60 and included all kit (wetsuit, mask, fins and snorkel) and was supervised by a terrific bloke called Matt. After a short brief, I headed into the tank and found myself surrounded by a wide range of 7-gill and schooling sharks, the largest of which was about 2½ metres long. Cool!
The tank also contained other sea life including some pretty impressive Rays and after the swim was over, Su and I joined other visitors to watch Matt feed the tank residents. Matt's party piece is interesting; he removes his regulator, places a piece of fish between his teeth and then motions to a nearby ray, who glides slowly over his face, snatching the morsel from his mouth as it passes. Matt told me afterwards that he doesn't taste the fish when he's in the tank, but "it's pretty awful afterwards".
The following morning we headed home, stopping in Taupo to visit the spectacular Huka Falls. No matter how many times I visit them, they never fail to impress me (200,000 litres of water a second tends to do that!).
Hawkes Bay is definately one to add to any "must see" list, whether you live in New Zealand or are just visiting.
Photo gallery available
